Disclaimer: I just posted this because I felt it was a nice thing to do. I don't mean to seem superior to anyone, and I'm sorry if I offend anyone! :/

Brush up on your subject knowledge. If you haven't watched/read the original work recently, do so. Get a feel for how the characters think and act; refresh your memory how the setting looks and understand how the key ideas work. Remember – people read fanfiction because they are fans of the original work, so putting pre-existing characters in a setting that is unrealistic for said character's original background will not draw much attention to your work and in the end, you will not be happy about yourself.

Choose the characters you'd like to write about. You can have as many or as few as you'd like. Make the characters similar to their true identities- or explore the possibilities of a different persona. For example: "What if ___ wasn't kind, but cruel instead?"- how would the story have turned out? This kind of character is called an "out of character" character. You can do that, or you can add your own characters! Be warned to not create a 'Mary Sue' – that is, your character needs to have flaws. Perhaps it does not have to be a fatalflaw in which it will destroy him/her, however the flaws still need to be withinthat character no matter who it is.

Think of what you'd like to write about. Fanfiction is the best way to explore the "what if"'s of the original work. A good way to get an idea is to ask a question: "What if ___ hadn't died?", "Why did ___ feel that way about ___?", "What would have happened if ___ and ___ got married?" It can be set in the past- a prequel to the story; the present- what is currently happening in the story; the future- what could happen to the story. From past experiences,however, it would generally not be a good idea to fit someone into a settingwhich is too advance or predated for that character's time period; some culturesdo not mix in that regard..

Start writing!This is likely the hardest part for anyone, but you have to hop to writing! Without writing, where will your fanfic end up? Surely you cannot live it in your head? :3

Revise and proofread. If you are trying to put out a piece of fanfiction, try to get it well structured and cleaned up as much as you can. For example, you could ask someone to go through and fix grammatical mistakes. Then, you yourself could proofread multiple times to see if you got that right word you wished to put in. Later, you could make your final draft. Just don't spend hours of typing stuff up without re-reading it to make sure you didn't skip half of the climax, or did not add in any suspense [unless that was your plan from the start].

Alison wrote:Disclaimer: I just posted this because I felt it was a nice thing to do. I don't mean to seem superior to anyone, and I'm sorry if I offend anyone! :/

No offense taken; we love disclaimers and personally I'm always willing to give second chances, though there are multiple exceptions to the word "always".!

Brush up on your subject knowledge. If you haven't watched/read the original work recently, do so. Get a feel for how the characters think and act; refresh your memory how the setting looks and understand how the key ideas work. Remember – people read fanfiction because they are fans of the original work, so putting pre-existing characters in a setting that is unrealistic for said character's original background will not draw much attention to your work and in the end, you will not be happy about yourself.

I have to disagree with this. See, the point of fanfiction is so people can make their own stories, otherwise there would be no fan in the fiction. No sense in making for example Link being voiceless in a fanfic if you want to explore the character and make your own archetypes.

Choose the characters you'd like to write about. You can have as many or as few as you'd like. Make the characters similar to their true identities- or explore the possibilities of a different persona. For example: "What if ___ wasn't kind, but cruel instead?"- how would the story have turned out? This kind of character is called an "out of character" character. You can do that, or you can add your own characters! Be warned to not create a 'Mary Sue' – that is, your character needs to have flaws. Perhaps it does not have to be a fatalflaw in which it will destroy him/her, however the flaws still need to be withinthat character no matter who it is.

Contradicting.

Think of what you'd like to write about. Fanfiction is the best way to explore the "what if"'s of the original work. A good way to get an idea is to ask a question: "What if ___ hadn't died?", "Why did ___ feel that way about ___?", "What would have happened if ___ and ___ got married?" It can be set in the past- a prequel to the story; the present- what is currently happening in the story; the future- what could happen to the story. From past experiences,however, it would generally not be a good idea to fit someone into a settingwhich is too advance or predated for that character's time period; some culturesdo not mix in that regard.

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Start writing!This is likely the hardest part for anyone, but you have to hop to writing! Without writing, where will your fanfic end up? Surely you cannot live it in your head? :3

Revise and proofread. If you are trying to put out a piece of fanfiction, try to get it well structured and cleaned up as much as you can. For example, you could ask someone to go through and fix grammatical mistakes. Then, you yourself could proofread multiple times to see if you got that right word you wished to put in. Later, you could make your final draft. Just don't spend hours of typing stuff up without re-reading it to make sure you didn't skip half of the climax, or did not add in any suspense [unless that was your plan from the start].

Well, that's also how things could work around; maybe there could be a revision team which helps with things like lengthy tutorials, videos, things like that? It could even work like a sticky for things like a set of character types that are commonly seen, how to do settings and all that stuff?